Growing older

Just celebrated my 37th birthday with the family. It really was a great time. Woke up and turned on the sprinklers, and brought the garbage out. Only to find a raccoon in the garbage! We all went out and knocked the garbage can over, tossed some food to the little guy, and watched him slowly work up the courage to run back into the woods behind the couch. We hung out as a family here and there, and the only gift I asked for was some extra time alone.

The extra time alone was something I have always desired since getting married, and then having our daughter, and now almost our second (another girl!!). The amount of free time gets smaller and smaller, but our list of things to do in that time gets bigger and bigger. I always want to work on some programming projects, but man are they hard to move along. Currently working on this little JRPG game and it sure is tough mentally to make some progress. So many things to worry about just to add one simple thing. It takes my brain about 15 minutes just to figure out where we are and how to do it. Let alone figuring out the current goal of things to work on, in the huge pool of things to add to it.

So extra time always seems like a great idea. My wife was happy to try and give me a whole day to myself. As the scheduled day came closer, I wanted it less and less. My brain can't focus for such a long period, I was starting to feel like I would be lonely, and also thought I wouldn't be productive with all that time for the full period. We slowly started to trickle it down to maybe just a little extra time here and there than usual, and then fell back to just having the morning work day as the time alone. And then that was broken up by me making meals, and also me taking some breaks just to see them.

Is hanging out with your family a hobby? Is it something you get better at? I think they are both true for the most part. I enjoy seeing my best friend (wife) and hanging out with our growing daughter as she has gained more and more of her own personality. It is great to see some kind of progress and personal growth on something tangible, like a game or learning something new. But sometimes the things you can't see are so much more important.

I've also started a bit of a reset during this vacation week. Starting to tone down scope of the current programming project. Working on gaining more knowledge in math and science and history. Still trying to find a good daily exercise routine, but currently running a few days each week. Lifelong learning is great, but becoming a better human can mean so many different things.